HSBC Horror Stories

KO in Texas said: “I opened an account with Lumber Liquidators (under HSBC) in August 2007 with a promo rate through Feb 2008. In January 2008, my statement showed full payment was due by Feb 7 or I would owe an additional $800 of deferred finance charges.

I knew that I was going to receive my annual bonus in April which I would use to pay this balance, but I just needed to find a way to carry the balance at a low rate for three more months.

On January 15, I initiated a balance transfer from my WaMu credit card to pay off the full balance due to HSBC. HSBC rejected the electronic funds transfer, so WaMu sent HSBC a check in the mail on January 18. As of Feb 4, HSBC has yet to receive this check.

I called HSBC and accused them of holding the check until just after Feb 7 so that I would have to pay the deferred interest. The phone rep assured me that “HSBC has been in business for over 100 years and does not operate in this manner” and that “Payments are applied on the same day they are received”.

Desperate not to have to pay the $800 finance charges, I took a cash advance against my WaMu card and made a payment to HSBC over the phone on Feb 4 for the full balance, including the rip-off $15 fee for phone payments.

I called back on Feb 5 just to make sure my payment had posted to my account and found that I had a balance left of $0.10, despite verifying the full amount of the payment with the phone rep! If I had not caught that, it would have caused the $800 of finance charges to be billed to me! Isn’t that convenient?

I called on Feb 5 and had them remove the remaining $0.10. The phone rep promised me the $0.10 would be removed the same day and I would not have to pay an additional $15. Time will tell if this is true or not.

It’s a good thing I am vigilant about my accounts. I think most people would have been scammed in this situation. Hopefully I have avoided their tricks.”